Jaha Dukureh

This Woman is Fighting to End Female Genital Mutilation in the U.S.

Read her brave, inspiring story, and find out how you can help.

This Woman is Fighting to End Female Genital Mutilation in the U.S. Read her brave, inspiring story, and find out how you can help.

The Guardian

Jaha Dukureh was an infant when she suffered female genital mutilation in Gambia, a country in West Africa. Now a 24-year-old mother of three in Atlanta, Georgia, Dukureh is dedicated to spreading awareness of this devastating practice, which is happening right here in the U.S.

Earlier this year, Dukureh started a Change.org petition asking the White House to commission a prevalence report on women and girls at risk for female genital mutilation (FGM) in the U.S. It has since gained over 211,000 signatures and support from several members of Congress, but she's not planning to slow down any time soon.

"I started this petition because FGM is a huge issue in the African community in America, and no one is talking about it," says Dukureh. FGM is defined as "the partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons," according to the World Health Organization. It's a practice most prevalent in African and Middle Eastern communities, says Dukureh, and can happen anytime from infancy until the age of 13 or 14, with some cases still occurring even later. The United Nations has declared it a human rights violation, and laws have attempted to address the issue in the U.S. (making it illegal to take girls out of the country for the procedure), yet it continues to persist.

"This is an American issue," says Dukureh. "It happens in every state." It also tends to happen every summer, she says, as young girls are sent on "vacation" to their home country to be cut. "When we first started this campaign, I knew about it in my own community and knew they would send kids out of the country for it. But then I started talking to girls and we actually have cutters right here in the U.S."

Recently Dukureh spoke with a school counselor in Georgia who works in a county with many African kids, some of whom have brought up the topic of FGM. The counselor mentioned that she talks to the kids about their experiences and when they went to Africa, and the dates don't always match up. "She knows when she calculates that these kids were cut right here," says Dukureh.

Having a personal tie to this revolution keeps Dukureh even more motivated: "I know firsthand what they've been through and the scars I still have to this day. Having something so precious, something that was yours, taken away from you—you will never regain that. You will never know what it feels like to have that part of your body, that sensation, that God-given right. I don't want to see any person go through what I've been through."

A congressional letter that supports her campaign has been signed by 58 members of congress and was sent to the Obama administration by Reps. Joseph Crowley and Sheila Jackson Lee. This week, Dukureh is attending meetings in Washington, D.C., speaking with Rep. John Lewis and others about the congressional letter. She and the members of Congress are hopeful that she will receive a response from the White House sometime this summer.

This report would let us know how prevalent FGM is in the U.S., which would be the first step in figuring out how to stop it. Dukureh explains that the next steps would be to educate the at-risk communities, educate school officials and provide sensitivity training for this, and alert the Department of Justice to where and when this may be occurring.

So what can you do to help? First, sign Dukureh's Change.org petition. You can also visit Dukureh's organization, SafeHandsForGirls.org to learn more about the fight and how you can help. Finally, raise awareness by talking about it and letting people know that this is happening in our country. "This whole campaign has allowed a lot of survivors to come out," says Dukureh. "This has enabled other girls to say, 'this happened to me.' It's a step in the right direction that people are speaking out."